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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22846888">Lead Us to Destructive Behavior</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taste_of_Suburbia/pseuds/Taste_of_Suburbia'>Taste_of_Suburbia</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>an unquiet mind [18]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>From Paris with Love (2010)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Against all odds, Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe - Creatures &amp; Monsters, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Hunters, Angst, Betrayal, Depression, Established Relationship, Family, Fear, Flashbacks, Friends to Enemies, Friendship, Guilt, Head Injury, Heart-to-Heart, Heavy Angst, Hunters &amp; Hunting, Implied/Referenced Murder, M/M, Mentions of a Time Loop, Murder plotting, Paranoia, Partners to Lovers, Prophetic Visions, Regret, Revelations, Romance, Self-Hatred, Self-Worth Issues, Self-blaming, Skeletons In The Closet, Suicidal Thoughts, Trope Bingo Round 14, Unhealthy Relationships</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 17:08:33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,476</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22846888</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taste_of_Suburbia/pseuds/Taste_of_Suburbia</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Because now I won’t have you, Wax. Not for two days or two hours or two minutes. I won’t have you at all.”</p><p> <em>Because you’re supposed to kill me.</em></p><p>Better that Wax remember him exactly like this, exactly what this world had made him into.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>James Reece/Charlie Wax</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>an unquiet mind [18]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1400899</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Trope Bingo: Round Fourteen</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Lead Us to Destructive Behavior</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for <a href="https://immolate-the-silence.dreamwidth.org/47728.html">Trope Bingo</a> for the prompt Against All Odds. </p><p><strong>Back story:</strong> This is a sequel to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/20818400">All These Punishments</a>, because I slowly started to realize that it would be a crime if I left it unfinished. You don’t have to read that piece to make sense of this one, since this is a standalone work, but before the events of this piece Reece has a simple, harmless thought to ask for his prophetic visions to go away. The universe, fate, what have you gives him what he wants, but also sticks him in a time loop where he has to watch Wax die in hundreds of gruesome ways. This picks up where that left off, with Reece believing he’s never going to escape the loop… or so he thinks. Of course, the worst is yet to come. </p><p>Also, I’ve been wanting to play around more with the idea of Reece working for an agency that <em>doesn’t</em> accept his visions as legitimate, beneficial, <em>sensible</em> tools. Because, of course, while this time loop is happening, this alternate Wax has never been with a Reece who has visions. </p><p><strong>Miniseries [part 2]:</strong> All these punishments lead us to destructive behavior, beckoning unreasonable fury, staying our hand from madness so we can fight another season and poison the source</p><p><strong>Series:</strong> an unquiet mind</p><p><strong>Soundtrack:</strong> Lyrics are from Brand New’s ‘Out of Mana’</p><p>Upon reflection, Reece’s abilities are kinda like Mana, which I researched after listening to the above amazing song. According to <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/mana-Polynesian-and-Melanesian-religion">encyclopedia britannica</a>, mana “may be either good or evil, beneficial or dangerous,” it’s an “impersonal, amoral, supernatural power that manifested itself in extraordinary phenomena and abilities,” and it is “descriptive of the possession of power and not itself the source of the power.” Reece’s psychic abilities are inevitably what I’m going to keep coming back to in this series.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>
  <em>~First write down all of your fears</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Then sweep the feathers you’ve preened</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Next you should dominate</em>
</p><p>
  <em>All the quests everyone said were too hard</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Unless you go back to sleep~</em>
</p>
<hr/><p>The lights were dimmed, flickering beyond closed eyelids each time exhaustion proved a worthy excuse for apathy.</p><p>
  <span>It had been two days since he had seen Wax drown in a bathtub full of tepid water, or electrocute himself with a burnt out wall socket, or trip and hit his head on a throwaway pipe, or the dozens of other ways Reece longed to purge out from under his skin. To top it all off, gruesome death bleeding into horrific accident bleeding into fated slaughter, he could remember all the visions that he had never even had in this world, could remember the kisses pressed as promises into his skin that no matter how much he pulled away, Wax would always race to catch up, would always find </span>
  <em>some </em>
  <span>way. </span>
</p><p>This Wax didn’t know his visions, wouldn’t accept his visions, would put a bullet in Reece like a good little soldier.</p><p>
  <span>Reece suspected it wasn’t a good thing that they were coming </span>
  <em>back. </em>
  <span>Not only the memory of them but new horrors played out only for him to see, taunting him to ignore them, to not act when he could save the victims because he could make the choice to save his own ass instead. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It wasn’t a choice </span>
  <em>anyone </em>
  <span>could live with. </span>
</p><p>So he hadn’t seen Wax die either of the last two days like he should have, like the master designer of the time loop had demanded of him. So he had breathed out and pinched himself and allowed just the barest amount of gratitude to sink into his skin. So he had believed that the universe had played out its petty vendetta as a result of Reece wishing for something so foolish as a retraction of his visions, that his own Wax would slowly start to fade back in, that he could really have it all.</p><p>And then the headache, his teetering line of sight aggravating to a point of topsy turvy delirium. Then his surroundings being sucked into a vacuum the size of a pinhole, the lights going haywire and blinking repeatedly as if trying to induce a seizure. The cold sweat breaking out at the back of his neck and the goosebumps infecting his skin, being frozen in place in a world where there was so sun or familiarity. The gun pointed at his heart neither a dream nor a skewed memory.</p><p>Nothing more than what would be.</p><p>
  <span>The visions and Wax finding out and there being no other course of action. The realization that this world, this </span>
  <em>Wax</em>
  <span> wasn’t </span>
  <em>his </em>
  <span>Wax. </span>
</p><p>He opened his eyes and the room snapped into place a fraction of a second too late: vibrant golds melting into exotic reds, reality slithering like its own beast before settling back into place and still… the walls practically dripping with venom.</p><p>It was a reminder that sooner or later, he would crack up.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>The light sensitivity was back, the cold sweats and the piercing headaches and the cold, </span>
  <em>cold </em>
  <span>sinking feeling that he was right back where he had started with Wax and yet not. </span>
</p><p>It was the beginning of the end.</p><p>This Wax was a bit more hardened and just a little more perceptive than his own Wax had been. Reece had more reasons to hide than ever before and yet faced the truth that he was far less likely to get away with it in this world, with this Wax, subject to this universe’s nonexistent mercy.</p><p>“<span>What’s going on with you lately?” Wax accused, voice sharper than Reece remembered, hard like how Reece was trying to make his heart. “You look like you’ve been seeing ghosts. Or demons. Or like I’ve grown a second head. Or </span><em>something.</em><span>” </span></p><p>
  <em>You haven’t been killed in five days. I haven’t been able to go for more than five hours without seeing the inevitable. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>What’s five minutes of you just feigning ignorance with me? </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Wax wouldn’t tolerate this side of him for too much longer; he was already too damn suspicious. There were only so many times he could ask Wax to check to make sure the door was locked, the windows latched tight, for no conceivable reason except that just maybe he could keep the world outside </span>
  <em>out</em>
  <span>, maybe he could trap them here and Wax would never have to make a choice. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>No</em>
  <span>, not </span>
  <em>make </em>
  <span>a choice that he’d already made, rather, not have to </span>
  <em>act </em>
  <span>upon a choice he wouldn’t view as a choice at all. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>In Wax’s eyes, </span>
  <em>soon </em>
  <span>to be in Wax’s eyes, he would be the </span>
  <em>hunted</em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p>“<span>Just tired.” Just trying to remember how he had ended up here, how long he had hid his visions from </span><em>his </em><span>Wax in the world he just couldn’t get back to. Just waiting to see if that Wax would come back, if he would wake up one morning and Wax would know or remember or </span><em>something, </em><span>not ‘I’ve put down psychics before, Reece, for the good of the world. It had to be done. Too dangerous, too unstable.’ And the fact that he was absolutely </span><em>right. </em></p><p>
  <span>Wax’s stare was piercing, predatory, painful. Reece could take the judgment as long as he thought about Wax down on his knees, covered in his own blood, gazing up at Reece with eyes that could only speak: ‘look what you’ve done, look what I’ve had to suffer because of </span>
  <em>you.’ </em>
  <span>He could take the blows as long as he remembered that everything that had happened was his fault and everything that came after, all of this, was inevitable and well-deserved and more like letting go than giving something up. </span>
</p><p>“Well, sleep it off and get your head back in the game.”</p><p>
  <em>Oh, Wax, you don’t </em>
  <span>want </span>
  <em>my head back in the game.</em>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>He must have blacked out at some point because the moment he lifted his head, sky spilling out above him and storm clouds threatening rain, the moment he felt the burn at his knees and embedded deep in his skin from kneeling down for too long, Wax was pacing around him and spitting out curses in an absolute </span>
  <em>fury. </em>
</p><p>Sweat bathed his face and neck, dripping into his eyes, making it hard to concentrate. His heart beat furiously in his chest as if he’d just run a mile, as if whatever he’d seen in his vision had felt real enough, despite not remembering an inkling of it, to trap him there.</p><p>Reece swallowed in panic and rose until his partner pushed him back down, coldly, callously, his toxicity a dangerous mix of fear and distrust.</p><p>“<span>Tell me what you saw!” He demanded, clutching Reece’s shoulder like he was about to tear Reece’s arm right out of its socket. There were actual lines of physical pain on his face, under his eyes and around his mouth, and there was nothing less than betrayal in his darkened eyes. “Goddammit, Reece, I </span><em>know </em><span>you had a vision!”</span></p><p>
  <em>Wax was laughing, pushing Reece back down onto the bed and straddling him. It was more than a bit awkward because Wax was more than a bit high, and Reece didn’t feel all too steady himself since he’d indulged in his sixth glass of wine. What the hell. Wax had stopped dying what felt like ages ago and Reece’s visions were few and far between enough that it wasn’t hard to hide them. He’d only disappear for a few seconds and he could chuck that up to being tired or having a headache or just thinking too hard about something. He was used to lying, used to saying something smart enough quick enough to lower Wax’s guard, to get him talking about something, most likely a case, so that Reece could take a few extra minutes to recover. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Reece was used to a </em>
  <span>lot </span>
  <em>of things. </em>
</p><p>“<em>I </em><span>love </span><em>getting you drunk.” Wax crooned. His hands were already in a bruising grip at Reece’s waist, fumbling with his belt, an eager side of Wax he’d seen and even experienced before but not like this. There was something about this, something about Wax’s hands that spoke of a familiarity and a certainty that his partner’s Reece was meant to reciprocate and yet the Reece right here right now, the one who wasn’t even supposed to be here, did </em><span>not. </span></p><p>
  <em>If Reece stayed in his head for long enough, it was almost enough to feel like he was being taken advantage of. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Which was stupid because he loved Wax, even this Wax, whose own Reece he’d taken the place of was apparently a lot more open and expressive. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>And that was when Reece realized that this </em>
  <span>was </span>
  <em>all new to him. In this universe, he and Wax were a lot more further along in their romantic relationship than he had been with his Wax. Reece was </em>
  <span>supposed </span>
  <em>to be far past the point of pesky doubts and foolish hesitations. He and Wax were already supposed to be settled in this domestic routine, barely giving it a second thought. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Reece wasn’t there yet, had still a lot more growing to do, but this Wax didn’t know that. Any reservations he displayed would be red flags. Any uncertainties would paint him a suspect in Wax’s eyes and then he would start looking closer. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>He schooled his face into a drunk smile, sloppy and giddy because he didn’t have any other choice. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>This wasn’t a version of himself he’d gotten to yet and he’d have to hurry the hell up and get there if he wanted to survive. </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Survive. </span>
  <em>Like every single one of those victims, the ones his visions had led him to, the ones his visions had put him in place of, experiencing everything without asking for any of it, reliving the ropes and the chains and the paralyzing fear and the broken limbs and the sliced open skin as if the pain of it all could never matter when it wasn’t real, as if it was all some small price to pay for saving them, as if he could only derive peace from helping others and not just from being himself because no, he wasn’t selfish enough for that, he had one job to do and only one job…</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Maybe this world, this version of the agency had gotten it right. Maybe seers were too dangerous because they paid too high a price. Maybe it was enough after a while to make any of them go mad and turn on a world that had demanded they do the impossible. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Maybe this Reece would crack, beyond all repair, and maybe this Wax would have to put him down anyway. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>A mercy killing. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>A </em>
  <span>waste. </span>
</p><p>“<em>Reece?” Wax had noticed his disconnect, as high as he was it still displeased him and Reece smiled up at him, nothing sad or apologetic about it, just a stupid smile reassuring enough so that Wax would move along. ‘It’s okay,’ he reasoned with Wax in his head, the only place he could. ‘No matter what you’ll have to do, it’s okay. Because maybe, just maybe, this world was never meant for me.’ </em></p><p>“<em>Just a memory,” he spoke, further ensuring Wax kept doing what he was doing. “Only a memory…”</em></p><p>Wax was still looking down on him, the confused concern in his eyes turning dangerously frosty, the pain in Reece’s heart magnified tenfold.</p><p>
  <span>That was when Reece noticed the knife in Wax’s hand, saw the way he kept pushing it back up into his sleeve only for him to pull it back out again. His indecisiveness spoke </span>
  <em>volumes </em>
  <span>to Reece but he couldn’t honestly say that he was surprised. He was waiting for this day to come, waiting for Wax to see straight through his carelessly crafted layers of denial reeking of bullshit and fear. He was waiting for Wax to take the plunge, to look deep enough into Reece’s soul to </span>
  <em>know</em>
  <span>, to know that this wasn’t his partner. </span>
</p><p>“How could you…?”</p><p>
  <span>And Reece thought </span>
  <em>bitterly: how could I </em>
  <span>what? </span>
  <em>How could I be like this? How could I let you figure it out? How could I make you do what you’re going to do? How could I ever think for even a </em>
  <span>second</span>
  <em> that I could </em>
  <span>change</span>
  <em> you? </em>
</p><p>
  <em>I never really had you. Not this Wax. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>And I never deserved my Wax. </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Reece lifted his head, hadn’t realized he’d been staring so intently at the knife and then, when he could no longer, down at the concrete, rippling with heat, inviting Reece to collapse onto it so it could burn him alive from the inside out. Instead he was waiting on his knees, waiting for the moment when Wax would take his first swing and maybe even strike out, on purpose, on accident. Unlike his visions there was no predictability in any of this. But now that he had was facing Wax head-on, the remaining vestiges of his strength called out to him. “I told you,” he accused, trying to foolishly shift the blame, to put some of this on Wax because he had to blame Wax for </span>
  <em>something. </em>
  <span>“I told you that morning and you didn’t die after that, so you </span>
  <em>must </em>
  <span>remember.”</span>
</p><p>“<span>Didn’t… what? Didn’t </span><em>die? </em><span>And remember what?” He couldn’t look so much like a fool now, could he? Whatever he told Wax now, it wouldn’t matter. It would never be as crazy as the fact that Wax’s partner was now suddenly a psychic working for an agency that had declared a witch hunt against psychics </span><em>years </em><span>ago. “Fuck, Reece, remember what?” </span></p><p>“<span>Put the knife away first,” Reece’s voice shook, displaying every </span><em>ounce </em><span>of his vulnerability. “I can’t think when you have it out.”</span></p><p>Wax just stared at him, appalled, distraught, indecisive. “I… I don’t have a knife.”</p><p>
  <span>Reece erupted in laughter, nearly choking on it until Wax, either pitying him or amusing him, put it away so he could breathe just that little bit easier. “So tell me a story, Wax,” Reece tried, blinking back tears, vision clouded over enough that he couldn’t read Wax the way he wanted to. Maybe it was better that way. “Tell me about the day all the psychics were killed, </span>
  <em>slaughtered, </em>
  <span>one by one.” It had been an itch under his skin since the first time Wax had mentioned it and despite pushing it down, dwelling on other things that were arguably more important, Reece had finally come to the conclusion that this might be the missing piece he needed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>What the universe needed him to know before he could go </span>
  <em>back. </em>
</p><p>
  <span>As if rehearsing lines he believed had absolutely </span>
  <em>nothing </em>
  <span>to do with Reece’s life, Wax said the only words Reece figured he had the guts to say to put as much distance between the two of them as possible, as if they were just partners and it all wasn’t so much more complex. “It’s above your…”</span>
</p><p>“Pay grade,” Reece finished. “And yet I am one, so I think it’s pretty damn relevant to know how I’m going to die. When and where it’s going to happen, how much longer I can expect to live before the guillotine comes down on my unsuspecting head, who’s going to…”</p><p>
  <span>Wax crumbled like bricks under a relentless sledgehammer. “You’re not a psychic, Reece! My Reece is </span>
  <em>not </em>
  <span>a psychic. Reece is my partner and he’s a damn good investigator and </span>
  <em>goddammit</em>
  <span>, he’s never coming back because of </span>
  <em>you. </em>
  <span>Because of whatever you are, because of whatever you’ve done. Did you think I didn’t notice how you don’t smile as easily as you used to, how you’re always a step behind and not because you’re incapable of being more but because you </span>
  <em>think </em>
  <span>you’re incapable? I bled all that out of you, I laid my reputation on the line for you, I chose </span>
  <em>you.” </em>
</p><p>“<span>How many did you kill?” Reece responded with callousness toward Wax’s own pain because to him, it didn’t exist. “During the bright, </span><em>glorious </em><span>days of your witch hunt?” Because this was personal. Because there was a part of him that could understand </span><em>how </em><span>the agency could do it, could recognize his own fallibility, how he was this unstable chemical that mixed with just the wrong thing, the wrong </span><em>circumstance</em><span> could make him implode and take the whole goddamn world down with him. More bad than good. Too risky to let go and let live. He </span><em>got </em><span>it and yet he couldn’t just stand by at this moment, when it had all come to a head, and let it happen without knowing the truth of it. </span></p><p>
  <span>He wasn’t ready to lay down and die </span>
  <em>just</em>
  <span> yet. </span>
</p><p>“Twelve.”</p><p>
  <span>If it was possible for Reece to feel anymore sick than he already did: sick </span>
  <em>physically, </em>
  <span>sick at heart, sick down to the very depths of his punctured soul, he couldn’t fathom it. </span>
</p><p>“<span>And did I know it?” Reece trembled. He could practically feel the blade slice across his neck, scissoring in deep, opting for maximum blood flow. </span><em>Twelve</em><span> and for</span><em> what? </em><span>For just existing? For just being this nonexistent threat to the agency? Had they known before they were cut down? Had Reece played it all off like it was nothing, that since he hadn’t been one it had been for the greater good? All the people they might have saved, all the people that never were saved…</span></p><p>“<span>Yes.” It was so final that Reece was sure it hadn’t affected him in the slightest, the </span><em>other </em><span>Reece, sure that it had just been their job to save some innocents and damn others. It didn’t matter that he’d never wanted these visions, that sometimes he’d rather be dead than wait for the horrors they had in store for him. He was still saving lives, would still be saving lives without them, so did that mean he deserved to die? Just like that? For, as Wax put it, the necessary good? </span></p><p>
  <span>Reece assumed Wax was affected enough by his horror and disbelief, for he began to justify his and the agency’s actions. “It was a gradual process but I’ve suspected for a long time now that it was always a sure thing for the agency. It was just a matter of </span>
  <em>when</em>
  <span>. There were so many conspiracies floating around back then, so many what-ifs and too many rumors of psychics fighting back, of leading our people into traps, of lying about their visions. I didn’t know how much of it was true, I didn’t know if </span>
  <em>any </em>
  <span>of it was true, but it became my job. It was already past when you came along, it was only a part of history.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>Only </em>
  <span>history. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>And if we don’t learn from our history… </em>
</p><p>“<span>Did you ever regret your part in it?” It was a weakness to even ask when Reece already knew the answer, when Reece knew full well it would be a </span><em>thousand</em><span> times worse to hear it from the mouth of the person he loved more than anyone or anything. </span></p><p>Wax shrugged. Reece had seen it before, once or twice when Wax had put down a cold-blooded killer, no doubt in their minds as to that. He had seen it right before Wax aimed for the heart or the head or, if he was feeling particularly in need of gratuitous violence, for the gut or neck, delighting in watching them bleed out. “How could I? There was no proof they weren’t a threat.”</p><p>Guilty just for being different.</p><p>And Reece was guilty for something he had entirely no control over.</p><p>
  <span>Reece seriously considered running then, wanting it to just be over with already. He didn’t want to live in this universe anymore. If he was to be the hunted, then his partner could put him down right here and right now and have done with it. But his knees were locked together and they didn’t move, his common sense holding firm and insisting he remain right where he was, not giving Wax the satisfaction of being a difficult, challenging, </span>
  <em>fun </em>
  <span>kill. </span>
</p><p>If Wax wanted him, he’d have to shoot Reece down like an injured dog, unable to run, unwilling to stand.</p><p>Best he make this quick.</p><p>“<span>You’re not Wax. Wax would never cut down innocents. You may jump the gun and think before you act, but I’ve never </span><em>once </em><span>doubted your ability to recognize right from wrong, to know good from bad. That’s why we were </span><em>partners, </em><span>Wax, because we </span><em>trusted </em><span>each other, enough to recognize the gray areas, enough to know we’d be </span><em>morally </em><span>able to live with everything the other did.”</span></p><p>“<span>Well, maybe I’m just the Wax </span><em>you</em><span> never wanted to see. But the other you was perfectly happy with me. </span><em>More </em><span>than happy. And that world you’re talking about, Reece? A perfect, happy little world like that doesn’t </span><em>exist. </em><span>No matter how much we may want it to.”</span></p><p>Reece nodded, having known he would get to this point. He thought, maybe hoped a little that it would take longer, but what did it all matter in the end? More seconds to breathe, to reason, to try to understand something he never would?</p><p>More seconds to live a life he could never have?</p><p>“Did you tell them yet?” Obviously, he had. Obviously, that’s what this moment was all about. This little scene where Wax acted outraged and betrayed and could reclaim a piece of himself. “Well, I’m on my knees so you might as well get on with…”</p><p>
  <span>He saw Wax’s arm move and felt the blow, the back of his head erupting like fireworks in a clouded sky, fighting to gain ground, to be </span>
  <em>seen. </em>
  <span>He fought too, against the darkness, against the uncertainty of not knowing what would come next, against the piece of him that really</span>
  <em> did </em>
  <span>want it all to be over, wanting there to be something better after all this, someplace he could breathe again, a world where he could have </span>
  <em>his </em>
  <span>Wax back, where everything could be uncomplicated and carefree and where the very idea of unhappiness was laughable. </span>
</p><p>Reece fought because there probably was nothing after this, just darkness, just a chance given to him and spit on by him.</p><p>He fought despite knowing the struggle was absolutely futile.</p><p>He was no match for Wax when he didn’t want to be in the first place, when self-preservation went spiraling right down the drain when faced with killing Wax. This was never how he planned on going out, but he supposed it was better than the agency sending some hit man he didn’t know after him, better than not seeing Wax before it all went black.</p><p>Better that Wax remember him exactly like this, exactly what this world had made him into.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <em>~Don’t run out of mana</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Or we’ll back down</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I want you to know, if you feel ready to go</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I can read the rest to myself, hell is digital</em>
</p><p>
  <em>You’ve smashed to smithereens~</em>
</p>
<hr/><p>The world was pounding, thundering in rage, the sun flickering in and out, the ground crumbling and yet still hard and unforgiving.</p><p>Reece lifted his head, agony gnawing at the back of his skull and rippling through his teeth. Blood was streaming from his nose, dripping into the cracks in his lips, drying his throat even as he swallowed it down. He spat most of it out, fire staining the blacktop wherever his saliva touched, fire streaming through his bruised fingers and breeding flames that coursed through his veins, fire settling in the curves of his elbows before ricocheting up toward his shoulders.</p><p>He lifted his head further and Wax was there, consumed with misery.</p><p>Reece had put that misery there.</p><p>He shifted back, almost curling against the wall, watching Wax as he shook off those chains of sorrow, watching Wax as his arm rose and the gun in his hand stared Reece down, colder than Wax, realer than any vision, the universe’s own weapon and Wax even more its tool.</p><p>
  <span>Reece got that. He had been the universe’s tool and the agency’s tool and maybe they were one and the same, maybe it didn’t matter, maybe it was the only thing that mattered given it was the one fate Reece could never escape from. He couldn’t control his own life and it was too late to change himself and even more so </span>
  <em>Wax</em>
  <span>. </span>
  <em>This </em>
  <span>Wax, who had no reason to trust him, no reason to drop that gun really save for Reece’s non-existent pleas, Reece’s less than half-hearted belief that the visions might give them something </span>
  <em>more</em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p>Did it all not matter? If the universe had wanted him to carry out the conclusions of these visions, then how was he here? Was it merely correcting its wrongs? Did Reece’s mistakes not factor into this at all or were they, simply, the catalyst?</p><p>Clearly, Wax was already at the point where ignorance and blind trust spoke more to him than the vow itself.</p><p>The vow that Wax would never turn his back on his own partner.</p><p>“<span>There’s a gun directly to your left,” Wax spoke and Reece jumped. </span><em>And I want you to point it at yourself, </em><span>Reece finished, expected.</span> <span>“I want you to point it directly at me.”</span></p><p>
  <span>Reece stopped breathing, stopped thinking, simply stopped </span>
  <em>being </em>
  <span>in that moment. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wax switched the safety off on his own piece, then motioned down to the other that Reece would only have to reach over to grasp. He wouldn’t have to move, would barely have to strain… Wax didn’t appreciate his hesitation. “Pick up the fucking gun, Reece! I’m not shooting if you don’t pick up that </span>
  <em>fucking</em>
  <span> gun!”</span>
</p><p>Then it was clear neither one of them would be getting what they wanted. “I’m not going to pick it up.” Reece rested his head back against the brick wall, digging in for maximum pain, for absolute clarity. No falling asleep, no slipping away…</p><p>
  <span>Wax’s voice trembled and broke, his arm dropping several inches, resolve snapping. “I </span>
  <em>have </em>
  <span>to shoot you, Reece,” he begged, but it was little more than a desperate almost question. “If I don’t, the things the agency will do to you, to me, we’ll </span>
  <em>both</em>
  <span> be dead, worse off than dead and you…”</span>
</p><p>So he wasn’t playing the ‘you’re a freak, card, the ‘you’re an abomination and those visions are against nature, against everything we stand for and swore to protect’ card. The ‘you’re vile and I have to destroy you’ card.</p><p>And maybe it would be better if Wax hated him, if Wax was so blinded by his disgust that Reece was no longer Reece in his eyes, not one piece of him.</p><p>“Then do it, Wax. I understa...”</p><p>“Goddammit, Reece! Pick up that fucking gun and point it at me!”</p><p>
  <span>If Wax had shot those twelve psychics in cold blood, just from blind faith in the agency’s mission alone, Reece didn’t see how gunning down his own partner would be </span>
  <em>any </em>
  <span>different. “Shoot me, Wax!” He uncurled himself and bared his chest to Wax’s gun, laid vulnerable his heart to the very depths of Wax’s wrath. He’d been hiding from his visions, hiding from himself and hiding from Wax for such a long time that right now, when he couldn’t do a damn thing to preserve his own life and wasn’t even positive he </span>
  <em>wanted </em>
  <span>to, it seemed finally time to </span>
  <em>stop </em>
  <span>hiding. “It can’t be any worse than…,” he bit himself off. There was such a thing as too many words, too many truths, things that Wax didn’t need to endure hearing. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Except… that line of thinking had led to more problems than he’d ever intended. He’d spent so long trying to hide details of his visions from his own Wax, believing he wouldn’t be able to carry their truths, that he’d been distancing himself from his own partner until Wax had started to put a stop to it. Until Reece started trusting in what Wax </span>
  <em>could </em>
  <span>handle instead of worrying about what he couldn’t. </span>
</p><p>He had betrayed Wax in that way and he wouldn’t do it again.</p><p>The gun was sinking again and Reece wondered whether his partner was even aware of it. “Worse than what?”</p><p>
  <span>Reece swallowed down the knot of pulsing agony in his throat. If words couldn’t save them, words which Reece had never fully spoken, then he’d never had a chance at all. “I had you, Wax. All to myself, I </span>
  <em>had </em>
  <span>you and I threw it all away.”</span>
</p><p>The safety was back on and Reece felt a weight lifted off his caving in chest. “Tell me.”</p><p>“I have!” Reece insisted. Wax wasn’t the best listener; in fact, he had played down everything Reece had said since he’d been thrown here, into this unforgiving reality at the universe’s bidding, forced to watch Wax die over and over and over, forced to watch Wax made whole again and yet still having Reece live in fear. Living in a new, soul-shattering sphere of fear that his visions returned would seal his fate.</p><p>“Tell me again!” Wax demanded, voice rising higher than Reece’s as if competing against him even in this.</p><p>
  <span>Reece swore and pushed forward, no more than a few inches but enough so that he could </span>
  <em>really </em>
  <span>get through to Wax, enough so that Wax would really have to fight to look away. “I didn’t want the visions again. It wasn’t a petty thing,” he argued, more for himself than anyone else. “There were real side-effects, symptoms that kept getting worse. Pain and losing track of time and just being so tired all the time. But it didn’t matter… you were always there. You couldn’t see it, didn’t have to </span>
  <em>live </em>
  <span>it but you never left me. The agency pushed us on each other but we became stronger together than we ever had been apart. And we started getting closer, Wax, I mean </span>
  <em>involved</em>
  <span> like we are now, but scarier than now because I would keep real secrets from you about the visions, things I didn’t want you to know, things I didn’t think you could handle, but I underestimated you, Wax. The other you, the you </span>
  <em>I </em>
  <span>knew didn’t care if I was at the top of my game. You were patient and understanding and you waited. You took care of me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And this was Wax’s way of taking care of him now, </span>
  <em>this </em>
  <span>version of Wax. Sparing him from all the cruelty he’d suffer at the hands of the agency, the very people that were supposed to </span>
  <em>protect</em>
  <span> them. It was Wax’s twisted way of showing that he cared about Reece more than anything else. </span>
</p><p>But Reece wouldn’t pick up the gun. He wouldn’t force Wax into it.</p><p>And, he realized, somehow managing to get back up on his feet, he wouldn’t lie prostrate before his partner: an easy target. He would stand even when he wanted so badly to fall, Wax’s equal in life and in chaos and soon in death. He wouldn’t pretend that he could shoot Wax when he’d sooner take his own life. He could take his own life, spare Wax this turmoil, but the version of Wax that he knew would never forgive him.</p><p>And the two Wax’s, when it came down to it, he knew weren’t so different after all.</p><p>“I… I wanted to give you more, more than what the visions were letting me give, so I wished so hard that I guess the universe decided to grant me what I wanted. And then you started dying, Wax, in horrific ways day after day after day, hundreds of times. And then you stopped, two weeks ago there were days and days where I fell asleep and you were there, and I woke up and you were still fine, and I started thinking that maybe it was all just some fluke, that maybe the universe had decided I’d had enough punishment. And then the visions came back and it’s all so much worse now, even than watching you die hundreds of times, as much as it broke me, because now I won’t have you, Wax. Not for two days or two hours or two minutes. I won’t have you at all.”</p><p>
  <em>Because you’re supposed to kill me. </em>
</p><p>He didn’t see Wax drop the gun, only heard it clatter to the ground, an abrasive sound, and he next felt Wax’s arms wrap around him, engulfing him in a hug so powerful he could feel his partner chaining him to this earth, could feel hot drops of anguish soak into his shirt and ignite his skin. He didn’t move, just remained there, soaking up everything Wax had to give, everything Wax had to get out of his system.</p><p>The agency couldn’t turn Wax against him.</p><p>But it was only a matter of time before it would tear them apart.</p><p>
  <b>FIN</b>
</p>
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